#1 rule followed by clients of Scientology is that you never talk about it. The only ones allowed to talk are the official spokespeople, and all they will do is repeat the same old canned PR message that the only way to find out what it is is to pay for it.

Not sure where you're getting "EX COMMUNITY" from those statements. Sounds like he wants current Scientologists.

My view is that if he is going to do a documentary on Scientology, he has to hear from and consider the ex community. What is he going to do if and when an ex approaches him, say "No, I don't want to talk to you"? If that happened we would want to hear about it. Further, he would know that the credibility of his documentary would be destroyed if he refused to interview exes.

My view is that if he is going to do a documentary on Scientology, he has to hear from and consider the ex community.

Sorry, but your view is shortsighted and wrongheaded.

How many documentaries on Scientology have been done with only Exes? All of them.

How many documentaries have been done "from inside the Church" (which is exactly what he stated)? None.

What is Louis Theroux best known for? Embedded access to controversial groups where he gets the 'what is it like to be on the inside' perspective. Check out his film credits here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0857621/

Some of his more notable efforts is life inside the KKK, WBC and pedophile sex offenders serving jail time:

And reception of his films indicates that the groups he films get treated in an even-handed way, with no sensationalism on why they are so controversial and lots of emphasis on telling their side of the story:

If the WBC 'tards were pleased with how he treated them, chances are scilons will also be pleased.

So no, it makes no sense that Ex-members who are no longer insiders who have a place in his film on Scientology. Theroux will do what nobody else does, and go where nobody else does, which is exactly what he is known for.

Tony Ortega left a comment
Before I start getting an avalanche of emails from people notifying me that Louis Theroux today tweeted that he's working on a Scientology documentary. Yes, I've known about that particular project for more than a year. I cannot say anything else about it at this point. Tomorrow I'll include a note that there are at least FIVE current documentary projects going on -- at least that I know of.

Fortunately, sounds like there is plenty of other films in the works that will likely be more in the cult exposé genre of documentaries where exes would be prominently featured, rather than Theroux's walk-in-their-shoes softer, gentler look-inside style.

How many documentaries on Scientology have been done with only Exes? All of them.

How many documentaries have been done "from inside the Church" (which is exactly what he stated)? None.

What is Louis Theroux best known for? Embedded access to controversial groups where he gets the 'what is it like to be on the inside' perspective. Check out his film credits here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0857621/

Some of his more notable efforts is life inside the KKK, WBC and pedophile sex offenders serving jail time:

And reception of his films indicates that the groups he films get treated in an even-handed way, with no sensationalism on why they are so controversial and lots of emphasis on telling their side of the story:

If the WBC 'tards were pleased with how he treated them, chances are scilons will also be pleased.

So no, it makes no sense that Ex-members who are no longer insiders who have a place in his film on Scientology. Theroux will do what nobody else does, and go where nobody else does, which is exactly what he known for.

Fortunately, sounds like there is plenty of other films in the works that will likely be more in the cult exposé genre of documentaries where exes would be prominently featured, rather than Theroux's walk-in-their-shoes softer, gentler look-inside style.

"Wrongheaded?" Seriously? What a pathetically douche comment.

You may be right. However, if all Theroux wanted to do was embed himself, he could and would contact the official Church of Scientology. The fact that he is tweeting an open call to Scientologists suggests that he is trying to avoid COS control and management -- probably because he knows the result would be bullshit. If he is willing to talk to Scientologists independently, starting with twitter contact, he may be willing to ALSO talk with Exes, Freezoners and Indies. Talking with corporate Scientologists "in good standing," Exes, Freezoners, and Indies are not mutually exclusive.

As I said above, which you conveniently failed to address (see, two can play the asshole game), if an Ex, Zoner or Indie does contact him, what his he going to say, "No, I only want one side of the story?" Yeah, that would greatly help the credibility of documentary.

Well I was tempted to point out you were spreading disinformation again, just like you did with the e-meter software that suddenly turned into "spyware" as you made your rounds. But I was trying to be nice.

Well I was tempted to point out you were spreading disinformation again, just like you did with the e-meter software that suddenly turned into "spyware" as you made your rounds. But I was trying to be nice.

Disinformation? By posting screen caps of the two tweets by Louis Theroux quoting exactly what he said? LOL

As for the e-emter software, did I ask the question? Yes. Did I suggest it was a possibility? Yes. Many did. But show me where I said it contained spyware.]]

It's buried in the comments on Marty's blog. And the inaccuracies of your thread title ITT, plus your history of sensationalizing everything you bring here from the indie blogs, speaks for itself. So no, I won't waste my time finding it, you've already proven yourself to be incapable of admitting that your dead wrong. Enjoy your fail.

No. Disinformation by falsely labeling an informal announcement that of the subject of his next film was an "OPEN CALL" and then falsely extrapolating Scientologists into Ex-scientologists.

If you would have done your homework and googlefu'd the guy, like I did for you, you would have seen how wrongheaded that was.

It's buried in the comments on Marty's blog. And the inaccuracies of your thread title ITT, plus your history of sensationalizing everything you bring here from the indie blogs, speaks for itself. So no, I won't waste my time finding it, you've already proven yourself to be incapable of admitting that your dead wrong. Enjoy your fail.

FWIW, I'm sorry to hear that. You bring good stuff here from ESMB, which I do appreciate. And you also do a great job of harpooning the indies when you comment on their blogs and interject some real world common sense. But sometimes you get carried away with blowing other things way out of proportion. Sorry if I was harsh, but all your "ROFL" seemed like you were taking it constructively which is how I intended it.

I've been watching a few of Louis Theroux's documentaries recently and I have to say his interview method is either going to allow Scientology's propaganda to be pushed to the audience without challenge, or is going to get his interviewees in the church all sent to ethics and assigned lower conditions for not sticking to the propaganda.
The technique of just standing there silently waiting for them to open up after overdoing the innocent question role will fail if he only interviews well trained Scientologists that have rehearsed their answers over and over.

Perhaps blackrob has a way to point some of the more footbullety facebookers who keep forgetting their every word is public towards Louis?

I'm interested in what Ortega has to say on this documentary project as I find it hard to imagine any active, in-good-standing Clam will step forward to participate. Reitmann was only able to get one or two (that she was able to discuss in detail) so why does this guy think he's different? The clams will never allow a third party to film anything and will demand final cut rights.

It sounds to me that this Theroux person hasn't properly done his homework on the cult.

Most of his work leaves you feeling dissatisfied at the lack of a resolution about a given situation, real life dilemma stuff. I can only hope he finds out the dilemma here is how false Scientology's reality is, and demonstrates that scientologists really don't have all the answers while claiming they do.

I have followed Louis on twitter for some time and noticed he follows a lot of Scientology critics, like Marc Headley and Tony Ortega. He was also replying to some tweets, mentioning he has read Inside Scientology and watched the show about Nancy Many. He clearly knows the Truth - just so curious how he will document it.

From http://rutube.ru/video/deec1033a9711b0813f6c73f645c69e3/
When he's there doing the interview he doesn't challenge "Steve" for saying "we know God's gonna do something for them" about some homeless people they met and played a song for, he then adds this narration in from the editing studio:
"It seemed to me that Steve was being a bit simple-minded in believing that Jesus was the answer to every problem in the world."
That's after the guy says he'll bring food for them and maybe set them up with a job, so I see Louis possibly making even more critical remarks in editing for the one on Scientology.

I wanna see one of those Scientology Sunday Services where they all get together to do group auditing and worship the 8th Dynamic. Then after that go out into the community and pick up drug users syringes and give out Way to Happiness leaflets.

What is Louis Theroux best known for? Embedded access to controversial groups where he gets the 'what is it like to be on the inside' perspective. Check out his film credits here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0857621/

Well... I look forward to his documentary about the making of the documentary.

He's in for a very wild ride, and this will be unlike any other experience that he's had. Even if CoS doesn't treat him like an enemy from the start, he'll find that DM wants script control and Tommy David mark 2 will keep turning up to give him the latest revisions.

By Tony OrtegaYesterday, filmmaker Louis Theroux mentioned on Twitter that he’s working on a documentary about Scientology.

<snipped>

Actually, this is a project long in coming that we’ve known about for more than a year, and it’s exciting to see it kicking into a new gear.

In fact, there are currently at least six television or feature film projects in production or being planned that we know of, but since most of them have reached out to the Bunker in some way, we’re going to remain vague about them until they give us permission to begin promoting them. (We’ll just say that one of them may be showing up as early as next month.)

There’s been some interest in a story coming out of Germany about an unnamed professional football player’s contract with the team Bayern Munich which included a clause saying that the contract could be severed if the player had anything to do with Scientology. We asked our man in Europe, Jonny Jacobsen, what was being said in Paris about this latest development.

I've watched a lot of Theroux and am very interested to see where this leads. My observations:
He seems to be most interested in covering controversial and weird topics by documenting people and letting them talk about what they believe or do. He has a wonderfully disarming approach to questioning and leaves plenty of room for footbullets. While not particularly probing as an interviewer, he lets moonbats prattle on about moonbattery rather well. He tends to presents documentaries as unbiased as possible, not making any overt judgment, although leaving a few subtle threads for the audience to pick up on.
There is a worry that the cult will be presented as a slightly kooky religious group who are happy, smiley and ready to welcome people of all beliefs to their regular sunday services.

Also, the clam response to this will be an interesting gauge to the current media paranoia level of miscavige.

I've been watching a few of Louis Theroux's documentaries recently and I have to say his interview method is either going to allow Scientology's propaganda to be pushed to the audience without challenge, or is going to get his interviewees in the church all sent to ethics and assigned lower conditions for not sticking to the propaganda.The technique of just standing there silently waiting for them to open up after overdoing the innocent question role will fail if he only interviews well trained Scientologists that have rehearsed their answers over and over.

OSA does do that, but they are also trained to derail questions they don't know how to answer or reveal negative facts about scientology.

OSA does do that, but they are also trained to derail questions they don't know how to answer or reveal negative facts about scientology.

and finally they're excellent at misdirecting questions to subjects they can handle ("are we all infested with ghosts of space alieans?!? Wooot??!?!?!?!?" rather than "Does the Sea Org mandate systematic trampling of the human rights of its members?"). See the Sweeney documentary which was kind of trying to be interesting, but had to be recut to be all about Sweeney losing it.

All that said, getting the young clamette who was interviewed by Reitman (the polite one) to give us an update on how she's getting on (a criminal record, was it?) would be fun

Have been hoping for ages that he would do a report on scientology. In my opinion not many people many people are taken in by Scientology whilst sitting in their living room, however positive it might sound. They usually manage to talk like idiots anyway.

Jon Ronson's fluffy piece from ages ago, even though he never challenges them and they think its good PR they still sound like a bunch of wankers

Jon Ronson and Louis Theroux are both excellent at appearing to let the kooks have an easy ride whilst really giving them enough rope to hang themselves. I love both of their styles - they get much deeper into the kooks than most jounalists could ever hope to whilst exposing the weirdness. The Scientology cult won't come out smelling of roses- just smelling of desparation, paranioa and moonbattery.

A documentary that challenges former Indonesian death squad leaders to reenact their real-life mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.

Could DM be persuded by this guy to show what song and dance number was going through his head when he orchestrated the 'Musical Chairs massacre'? That's a sci doc I'd go see.

He's always accused of being a faux-naif - his interview style is nine parts Mrs Merton to one part William Brown - but when you ask how much is acting, and how much is him, he claims to find the question silly.

'I'm in a professional situation, so that's not me. The everyday me is not someone who'd say to Debbie McGee [Mrs Paul Daniels], "Why haven't you had children?" It would be intrusive. I'm trying to do a job and part of that is asking questions that may seem insensitive and not stepping on the answers. If that's construed as wide-eyed innocence, so be it.'

Does part of him think of his interviewees: well, they've agreed to this, so if they don't like it, that's their look-out?